Xavier: A Mutant Memoir
by RainyDayScriver
Summary: I was curious what the X-verse might look like through a more grounded lens, so I'm trying a memoir style account of Prof X's life in (what I approximate as) his own voice. Has a bit of a 19th century voice to it since Xavier is a bit of a tweed-jacket-with-elbow-patch kind of guy. Don't know if this is something anyone else is interesting in, but thought I'd post just in case :)
1. Chapter 1

XAVIER: A MUTANT MEMOIR

CH1 A FATHER'S SHADOW

It is said greatness springs from small beginnings. When I am faced with the reality of my life and what I am capable of, I must remember those words and know they are true. As Professor Charles Xavier, figurehead to a new generation of humankind, the world has quaked more than once under the powers I wield and the universe itself has been irrevocably changed. But I was, and sometimes still am, just a little boy in awe of his father.

I grew up on my family's estate in Westchester County just a few hours drive from New York City, though the lush and sprawling grounds made it feel as if it were its own little world. Back then I had little comprehension what kind of wealth those private grounds and the historied manor we lived in represented. Though ours was clearly a privileged existence, my parents made a point not to draw attention to it.

Their intent I've gleamed since was to not instill in me any sense of false superiority. Despite being from old money himself, my father was surprisingly grounded and was lucky enough to find a wife that loved him for who he was and not what he had. Together they decided it of paramount importance to make sure I didn't grow up in the illusion that I was any more special than everyone else.

As noble as their intentions may have been, I can't help but to think this was a mistake. Not that they shielded me from a mentality of self-aggrandizing, but that they protected me from the reality that not everyone is afforded all the blessings that money and station bought for us.

My father, Dr. Brian Xavier, had not let the fortune he inherited define him. He could have simply coasted off of it or learned to juggle the many investments that perpetuated our family's wealth just as his father had before him. Instead he studied the sciences and earned himself a place at Oxford on his own merits, not on greased palms or pulled strings. First he attended there, graduating top of his class, then eventually he was taken on in a teaching position.

It was there he met my mother, Sharon, in a small coffee shop where she worked just off campus. They quickly fell in love and eloped, much to the chagrin of the many wealthy families hoping to unite their fortunes with ours through marriage. His own father was convinced he had done so in an act of defiance, but my father insisted love was his only motivation and even derided anyone who could be so appalling as to let money guide such decisions.

Unable to see eye to eye, or to keep civil tongues when speaking to one another, the argument grew into a feud that ended in my father being cut off from the family entirely. For several years my parents lived in a small apartment near Oxford as my father, aside from his teaching duties, pursued scientific research with a friend and one-time classmate, Kurt Marko.

Unlike my father, who studied science for the betterment of mankind, Marko was chasing dreams of wealth and notoriety. His ambitions made him a very motivated and challenging partner, which complemented my father's work ethic quite well. Like the Chinese Taijitu, their motivations and temperaments circled each other in a balancing of yin and yang and fueled a uniquely productive partnership. They were steadily on the track to greatness until they were derailed by the most mundane of roadblocks. In an inevitable consequence of my parent's love, my mother had become pregnant.

To my parents this was a blessing to be celebrated. My father's attentions quickly became divided and his work with Marko was put on hiatus. Marko was not pleased with this delay, but he was nowhere near the scientist my father was, and therefor had little choice but to accept his decision.

In the midst of preparing for their pending parenthood, however, my parent's received tragic news. Over the course of their estrangement my grandfather had become very ill and, losing his battle for recovery, was not expected to live.

A wealthy widower and father of only one estranged son, he didn't lack for the means of paying for personal care, but those in his employ pitied his loneliness and wrote my father to plead on behalf of an old man too stubborn to ask himself for what he really needed.

Returning to Xavier manor, my father and mother helped care for my grandfather as he fell deeper into his infirmity. Over several difficult months, father and son slowly made amends and even my mother became somewhat of a bright glimmer in the dying eyes of my grandfather.

Finally, one windy fall afternoon, the lord of Xavier manor succumbed to illness and passed. As a man I never knew him, but of him I can say his final act was one of growth, wisdom, and compassion. Seeing the error of his ways, my grandfather had amended his will to once again make Brian Xavier, my father, his soul heir.

There were those that believed it was simply familial pride that prompted the change, but my father often recounted the story to me and there was no doubt in his mind that his father had changed. My paternal confidence being as steadfast as his own, that was proof enough for me of my grandfather's redemption.

Now with the backing of our family fortune, my father and Dr. Marko resumed their research in full earnest. That is, after my mother gave birth and they had taken time to welcome to the family their brand new baby boy; Charles Francis Xavier.

So it was that I was raised in the picture of happiness. Loving parents, luxurious home, and the richness of nature coddled me in my childhood and I wanted for nothing. For this reason I was totally unprepared when tragedy finally found my perfect little world with a boom that shook the estate grounds.

I was playing outside when I heard the explosion and turned to see a pillar of smoke splitting the sky above the tree line. I rushed toward it see what it was and found charred and flaming wreckage where my father's lab had been.

Even then I didn't understand what that must mean. I only marveled at the power of it. How impressive the blackened hole where the mansion's west wing had been was. It was only when my mother came for me and snatched me up, her face lined with tears and her voice shaking with mournful sounds, that I began to feel a foreboding that my world was about to be torn apart.


	2. Chapter 2: The Hidden Laboratory

CH.2: The Hidden Laboratory

My father, being a man of great education, made a point to push me academically from as soon as I was able to hold a book. In fact, having no need for a salary after grandfather's passing, he quit his position at Oxford and taught me himself at home.

As the mansion was far more expansive than a family of three needed, even accommodating for our minimal staff, he converted several rooms into classrooms of a sort. Perhaps he knew having different spaces dedicated to specific fields of study would be helpful for focusing my young mind, or perhaps it was a manifestation of some hole left inside him from his days teaching at the university. In any case, I must say I still feel my mind shift to thoughts of science when passing the room where he taught me chemistry, then change to more metaphysical moods when passing where he once taught me philosophy.

His stratagem worked and I was hungry for information as far back as I can remember, always desperate to learn. For that reason I would sometimes sneak into his lab when he was out. It was both the ultimate symbol of mysterious knowledge and the other love of my father's life, the thing that stole him so often from us for hours and days at a time. What the mechanisms, charts, and slides there meant I had no idea, but they captured my imagination none the less.

One day sneaking into the wing that housed the lab, having seen my father leave in his car, I was startled to find a stranger waiting inside. I let out a squeak of fear when I turned to see him sitting on one of the long wooden tables.

"Hey, little guy, who might you be?" he asked.

I didn't respond or even move, as unaccustomed as I was to strangers. He laughed off my silence and continued in a jovial tone. "Up to no good, I bet. That's what being a kid's all about, am I right? If I'd grown up in a place like this… man, the adventures I would've had!"

"I'm sorry," I finally said, "I shouldn't be here."

As I turned to leave the man stood and caught my shoulder.

"Hold on, buddy, I didn't mean to scare you. To be honest, I could use the company. I won't tell on you. Honest."

I looked up at him. He was in a dressing gown of some sort and slippers. The garments were pristine but, though he didn't seem unclean exactly, he had an unkemptness about him that clashed with his well creased robe.

"Who are you?" I asked in the straight forward way children are so expert at.

The man pondered the question for a moment, which made him even odder in my eyes.

"I guess that's what I'm here to find out."

"Why are you in my father's lab?"

"This?" The man looked around. "Well, I'm waiting for your father. I'm… helping him. In turn, I'm hoping he'll be able to help me."

The man continued to look around the lab, as if assessing it for the first time.

"These old mansions are amazing. You don't see many of these plantation style mansions out this way. I bet it could tell some stories…" the man chuckled, "well, I KNOW it has stories now, but I mean even older ones!"

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"Well, for example, do you know what this room probably used to be? I bet it was working quarters for slaves. Men and women treated as less than human, used like tools." His face went grey. "The owner's able to excuse their monstrous behavior just because those they degraded were a little different from themselves. Different skin, different faces, different… just different from them."

The man started to rub at a bandage on one of his forearms, looked at me. "You'd think we would learn from our mistakes, but we don't. We just change the excuses for our hate and think that means we're better than before. But we're not. Don't forget the lessons your history teaches, don't let them cover it up with new wallpaper and furniture."

None of this was new to me. I was already aware of the estate's history and origins, my father had made sure of that.

"No," I said, "what do you mean about it having stories now, other than the old ones?"

"Charles!" My father's partner Kurt Marko had entered the room behind me. "What are you doing in here? You know this wing is off limits."

"Easy, Dr. Marko," The robed man said, "I saw the boy and called him over for some company."

Dr. Marko faced the man and suddenly seemed a threatening figure.

"We told you to leave the residents alone. If you're bored how about try getting that thing under control so we don't have to!" Here Marko gestured to the man's bandaged arm. "Brian is off to get some supplies we need. I'm going to scrub up and head to the basement. If you're done being a nuisance to your betters I suggest you be there before I am!"

"Charles," Marko said in a softer voice, "Why don't you go outside and play? This is no place for a good boy like you."

Marko eyed the robed man one last time before leaving the room.

"I suppose I'll get the rest of that lecture once you're out of earshot," said the man after Marko had left.

"Why are you going to our basement?" I asked.

"You don't think this is your father's laboratory, do you?"

"It is," I said defiantly. "He works here all the time."

"Does he?" insisted the man. "I'm sure he works here some, but what about when his partner is here? Have you never noticed where they disappear to? Would you be surprised to know this isn't even my first time in your house? Not by a longshot."

When I thought about it, it was true that my father was supposedly off working far more often than I'd seen him in his lab. And it was rare to see both he and Dr. Marko in the lab, even though Marko would show up early in the morning and leave late into the evening.

But there was no laboratory in the basement. I'd been down there many times, helping my mother with stocking or drawing from the food stores, assisting my father as he repaired leaks or working on the furnace.

The man tightened the belt of his rob and headed out the door.

"I'm telling you, kid, it's always the same old story just with prettier wallpaper."

Later that evening I asked my father why they had gone to the basement and he waved the question away, saying it was just a little something they had to do down there once in a while and wasn't anything for me to be concerned with. The next day I could hear my father yelling at Dr. Marko in the west wing from all the way down the hall.

I had meant to press him again on the subject, but time is slippery when you're young and the next thing I knew I was staring at the burning wreckage of the west wing from over my mother's cradling shoulder.

Later they would tell me there had been an accident with some chemicals. My father had been conducting experiments with some volatile substances and must have mishandled one of them, causing a massive explosion. They said he had died instantly.

Something about what that robed man had told me kept coming to my mind after that. How he had said that the room in the west wing wasn't really my father's laboratory. Whenever my mother tried to explain to me what happened, whenever the house faculty tried to console me, and as we watched the coffin being lowered into the ground, I only shook my head violently and mumbled, "that wasn't his lab!" At the time, even I didn't know what I meant by it.

The night of my father's funeral I waited for my mother to go to bed, then snuck out of my room. When I passed her room there was no light from under its closed door, though I could hear the faint sound of weeping.

I wasn't even sure where I was going until I was there, in the basement. It was so much bigger, so much darker that night than ever before. I didn't dare turn on the lights, despite the fact that there was no one up and about to see the light coming up to the kitchen. So I went through the wine cellar, guided by my flashlight, to what was then the food store. There was a closet there I had never seen opened. Once or twice I'd tried to open it by accident, but both times it was locked. This time, though, it was not.

It wasn't a closet as I'd always assumed, but an old style elevator, barely big enough to comfortably fit two adults. I took the elevator down to the first of two subbasements, opened the door.

There before me was a laboratory to put the west wing lab to shame. Multiple rooms, multiple labs, with every conceivable variety of equipment. The more I explored the more awe inspiring it was. Electronic labs, chemical labs, and even a gymnasium. Filling nearly half the space was a series of medical rooms, most notably, and unsettling, was an operating room.

Inside was an operating table, striped clean to just a mattress and the steel frame it sat on, leather straps dangling at its sides. Close beside was a bin, filled with sheets and a robe, all of which were splotched and dotted with blood. One of the walls was mostly a large window looking in on some sort of observation room, the tables there riddled with papers and notebooks.

I'd always seen my father as a source of unfathomable wisdom, a pantheon of knowledge and strength that I followed with unfailing faith. Faith that he saw things far beyond what I could see. I had never been surer of these things than I was as I explored the hidden laboratories below the mansion, and, for the first time, that assurance frightened me.


End file.
